Headington Headlines #193

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 8 -14 December.

Roundway traders say they have been badly affected by the London Road roadworks, especially as it seems the project is suffering significant delays.

A man was assaulted and robbed by ‘a gang of teenagers’ on Margaret Road on Friday 5 December.

Two further robberies on Monday, in Quarry Hollow and Bury Knowle Park, are being linked by @TVPolice.

Again on Monday a man had an unknown substance sprayed into his face in a robbery which happened in the alley between Cinnaminta Road and Leiden Road in Wood Farm. The victim was carrying £3500 in cash which he was taking to the bank for his employer.

The John Henry Brookes and Abercrombie Building at Oxford Brookes, and the Maggie’s Centre at the Churchill, are among 147 buildings nationally nominated for the 2015 Civic Trust Awards (scroll down the linked document to South East Region).

Headington Community Action opened a new bike shelter at the Headington Community Centre in Gladstone Road.

After two unannounced inspections by the Care Quality Commission earlier this year, the Albany Care Home was rated ‘Inadequate’. The care home is on the London Road opposite Headington Prep School. One of several problems which the home seems to have failed to cope with was the departure of all their staff nurses, who had to be replaced with agency nurses. The Oxford Mail has more on the story. The company that runs the Albany, Four Seasons (Bamford) Ltd runs a large number of other care homes and has an outstanding CQC warning at a home in Manchester that they must make improvements within a given timescale.

Active posts on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week:

  • no lights
  • Smoking at JR Hospital
  • Transport and the social divide
  • Pub on Barton Park?
  • Barton Rd development
  • Bicycle hazard – Headington Hill
  • Oxford-HM Forum needs your financial support!
  • Does YourNextMP have your constituency right?
I cover news from the OX3 postcode in Headington and out as far as Barton, Sandhills and Risinghurst (see map). To feed into next week’s summary you can comment on this article, or tweet either with the hashtag #ox3 or @mentioning @TonyOX3.

Headington Headlines #192

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 1 -7 December.

Headington’s live Advent Calendar got off to a flying start this week. @TheOxfordMail carried this report.

A collision near the Headington Roundabout closed the Eastern bypass for a time on Wednesday morning. We seem to be getting at least one accident a week around the roadworks there.

@BartonPark_ has won the award for ‘Planning for Housing Growth‘ at the 2014 Planning Awards.

Continuing the tradition of Headington pubs winning CAMRA’s Oxford Pub of the Year competition, this year’s winner is @TheMasonsArmsHQ. Congratulations to @ChrisMeeson and @Innkeeper55.

The Headington Christmas tree was duly installed in its new purpose-dug hole on Friday.

My favourite Headington-related tweet of the week:

Active posts on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week:

  • I’d just like to say…
  • no lights
  • Barton Rd development
  • Dunstan Rd Speed Humps
  • Transport and the social divide
  • Barton Rd development
I cover news from the OX3 postcode in Headington and out as far as Barton, Sandhills and Risinghurst (see map). To feed into next week’s summary you can comment on this article, or tweet either with the hashtag #ox3 or @mentioning @TonyOX3.

Changing twitter accounts

Dear twitter followers and other readers! I’m changing my twitter accounts. This blog has always just been about Headington (mostly) and Oxford (occasionally), but @TonyOX3 on twitter has covered both local stuff and my wider personal interests (aka random witterings). This has been a bit confusing, particularly for me as I’ve been running another personal account at the same time. So from now on @TonyOX3 will just be about Headington and Oxford, and all other stuff will be on my personal account @Acripedes which links to my personal website/blog.

So please, if you’re just interested in keeping up to date with local affairs here in OX3 stay with me here and on @TonyOX3. If you’re one of my followers outside Oxford who doesn’t want to bother with all that stuff, by all means unfollow me here but please follow me on @Acripedes instead. I’d hate to lose touch with you! And of course, you can always follow both.

For the same reason I’ll be unfollowing some people from @TonyOX3 and re-following them from @Acripedes.